Exceptional Species

Umm…. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have many friends from the IT industry.

Most of my students are working in IT field or studying to become an IT engineer. Most of my student’s parents are working in IT field. My landlord’s son works in IT. My neighbors are working in IT field. The lady who was counting her free gift coupon to give while shopping was an IT engineer. Some relative of that old man who had a bag with Infosys written on it is working in the IT field. The person who was sitting next to me on the bus today was an IT engineer. The girl who waved a brand-new pink 2000 rupee note early in the morning in front of that cashier for her ₹20 Idly sambar breakfast was an IT engineer …

Well, what else can I expect when I am in the IT capital of India, right?

My point is, I know a thing or two about these IT people. It all started in 1997; when I got the internet connection. Those days we had this AOL, Yahoo chat etc.

No offenses. I know only good things to write about IT professionals. 🙂

Have you noticed? They all say they hate IT when they discuss work but whenever I asked them to leave and do something else, they say they can’t and will give us a list of their personal responsibilities and the reasons why they can’t leave.

They all say money is not important; happiness and passion are the most important thing in this world. (hmm… but you must see their face when they get less increment or when they don’t get a promotion)

They all want to start a restaurant. They all want to do something else while working in IT. They plan a lot and might open a restaurant and will shut it down after 3-4 months. I have seen it several times in the last ten years.

Two-three years after getting the job and making some pocket money, male IT engineers become cat lovers and females, dog lovers… 😉

To love a cat and a dog is a nice thing. I know… but I hate when they start loving this one ‘CAT’ only every three months in a year. And, will hate that ‘CAT’ after January, the next year. (CAT? Common Admission Tiger or something… All I know is, it’s not as beautiful as the Bengal tigers)

Single Female IT engineers who stay in PG or at a rented place with friends, start to love so many dogs. All kinds of ‘dogs’… (umm…umm… nothing 😉 ), Especially, the stray dogs. They love to feed, take a selfie with the stray dog, and to cuddle that dog who has not seen a bucket full of water, so far in his life.

Well, I have also seen their love for stray dogs evaporate as soon as they buy a scooty or a car. Then they go after more classy domesticated dogs with pedigree.

Yes, one should love animals and take care of them. But there is something called a ‘consistent desire’ to take care of these stray dogs and not when they see a dog while they are smoking a cigarette or chewing pan masala, in the evening after work.

If they love these stray dogs so much, they must buy 2-3 acres of land and make a shelter for the dogs. That is something noble, I guess.

(The reason why I wrote this is, I have got bitten by stray dogs near my house… The same dogs those girls were feeding and cuddling. One day, I saw stray dogs going to attack a 5-6 – year – old school girl. That is not a good scene at all. Imagine your small kid getting bitten by a stray dog?)

Then, they all want to help the poor and the needy; once they start to make some money. And they all start with helping their drivers, cooks and their maid’s kid; only to get upset and curse them after six months of helping.

They all will join for music, dance, aerobics, gym and yoga classes… And the majority of them would stop all these within 2-3 months of joining.

They also don’t want their kids to choose IT as a career but at the same time, they want their kids to do engineering. Yeah… after engineering, according to them, kids can do whatever they feel like.

I get really scared when my friends or students say that they have some training or these silly motivational sessions. Because they will be a different person altogether for a week after these sessions.

They will be fully motivated and you should see the way they talk, dress and walk. Like a big balloon.

After a week, of course, they will be like that balloon without any air.

My biggest fear is, I won’t understand a word they say for a week because they will be having this super English accent and vocabulary, which even an Oscar Wilde or Virginia Wolf don’t have.

Once, one engineer asked me, “Chicky, say ‘America’.”

When I said, she was like, “yes correct. That is how you have to pronounce.”

Then she started eating a Mirch baji which I had bought from that street vendor, and she started…

“ You know Chicky, there should be a ‘holistic’ approach and things should be ‘succinct’… “

What followed was an avalanche of these sentences with words which I’ve never heard before that fateful day. For example… Intrigued, torment, mordant, masquerade, ostensibly, palpable, insipid, podgy, ensconced, heave, deciphered, rhetoric etc.

I stood there helplessly not knowing whether to swallow or not, that yummy Mirch baji.

I had already put those imaginary earplugs when she started talking and was giving an elastic smile and nodding my head as if I were a cheap Chinese doll.

Other thing I really like about this new generation IT people are, their overuse of ‘happiness’, ‘be ‘positive’ and have a positive outlook’, ‘following your heart’, and ‘goals, plan, action theory’.

Mild symptoms of this disease will be visible in people between 26-30 years. And acute symptoms will be visible when they are 35-40.

After working for 5-6 years in IT field, they become very philosophical. Basically, it all start either when they have some bank balance and after gaining some experience, or when they get fired from a company.

Not before that. No way… 🙂

All will be quiet till they have some steady regular income. That is how it is in general. Not only in IT, I guess. Maybe I am wrong, okay. But older generation will tell you that the money has this ego boosting ingredients which automatically make people think they have become wiser and smarter once they start to make some money.

Why suddenly think of following their heart? I don’t know.

What were they (IT professionals) doing when they were 15 or 18? No one told them about following their heart before joining an engineering college, or before attending a campus interview?

Or…they did not feel it inside them to take a pledge that, “come what may, I will only do the things which my heart says and I will never listen to anyone’s opinion”?

What were they doing? Playing snake and ladder, 24/7?

What did they learn from listening to Metallica’s ‘Nothing else matters’?

It’s very difficult for me to believe that more than a million people working in the IT field in this city had this same dream and are following their heart; which is, work for an IT Company for some time and go for a start-up. of course, after buying an apartment, a car and after finding a suitable well earning IT spouse!. (FYI, Indians are Indians. We haven’t changed since ancient times when it comes to risk taking) How nice… 🙂

It is okay to get angry with me for writing all these but don’t say I don’t know anything about the funny side of IT industry because I’ve spent more than 7 years of my life literally living with IT people and more than 6 years teaching software engineers.

One IT engineer recently asked me, “Are you almighty?” and gave me that ‘I know IT field better than you’, look. She also gave me a class on what is unconditional love 🙂

Like the writer #Sharadhakutty once said, ‘you don’t have to press each and every grain of rice in a cooker to find out whether it’s cooked or not. 2-3 is enough.

But again, whatever I am writing is not real, it’s all my imagination… 😉